Selected observations on topics of interest to a retired geezer with a computer and time to devote to something beside a golf game going South.

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

File Sharing Ruling by SCOTUS

By a vote of 9 to 0 the Supreme Court huffed and puffed and found that companies like Grokster which provide software which allows internet users to share music and movies can be sued by companies like MGM, Disney and Time Warner. What does this mean for those who share music and movies over the internet? Nothing. Technology will win and the sharing will continue despite all of these legal pronouncements. The reason is the software used by Grokster is easy for anyone to provide and someone will make it available for others to use. They may be in the U.S. or not. They may have assets to sue for in the courts or not---probably not. The content providers should just quit fighting it and learn how to make money off the technology like Apple did to some extent with iTunes. It will not be easy, but reality should be faced by these big companies.